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What’s the issue with public health policies to prevent disease spread?

Governments around the world put a range of public health policies in place to curb the COVID-19 pandemic—including social distancing and vaccination. These interventions (distancing and vaccination) can be seen as partial replacements for one another. In other words, if people are strongly motivated to take up one option, they may not be as inclined to do the other. Given that, economists and public health experts need to understand the interplay between different interventions—as well as any unintended consequences—to determine what public health policies are most effective in curbing infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

What does the research say about the tradeoffs between social distancing and vaccination?

In two recent papers, “” and  the co-authored “,” Professor Christopher Avery investigates the interplay between individual decision-making, social distancing, and vaccination in the context of infectious diseases.

Avery finds that policies that promote vaccination, such as mandates, are effective at reducing infection rates. On the other hand, he writes, “policies that promote social distancing can have the paradoxical effect of increasing future infection rates by discouraging vaccine adoption.”

“While vaccination and social distancing are strategic substitutes, vaccination is more effective at reducing cumulative infections,” Avery finds. “Reductions in the cost of social distancing shift the collective response to an epidemic away from vaccination and can substantially increase cumulative infection rates.” Policymakers, then, may more effectively reduce infection rates by concentrating on policies that promote vaccination over those that focus on social distancing.

Understanding the economics of social distancing and vaccination is critical for designing effective public health policies, especially in pandemics like COVID-19. Avery’s papers sheds light on the unintended consequences of interventions and provides a framework for evaluating the trade-offs between different strategies.